Not surprisingly, the family of Sgt. Ryan Russell feels abandoned by the justice system at every turn.

First, they had to accept a jury’s verdict that Richard Kachkar was ill and not criminally responsible when he ran over the young father with a stolen snowplow that snowy morning three years ago.

Then, just days after the trial ended, they were shocked when the Ontario Review Board (ORB) went further than even Kachkar’s lawyer had requested and granted the psychiatric patient accompanied visits into the community.

And now, the Ontario Court of Appeal has dismissed the Crown’s attempt to have those generous privileges revoked. Ontario’s highest court is satisfied that the ORB had enough evidence from two psychiatrists to suggest Kachkar poses no danger to the public — even if his mental illness and psychotic break have never been clearly diagnosed.

His rights come first.

“The recent decision by the Court of Appeal is so unfair to Christine Russell and our family,” complained Roy Hylkema, the widow’s father. “When will this madness ever end?”

Police union president Mike McCormack was also disappointed with the decision. “This isn’t just about someone who killed a police officer,” he said. “Our concern is obviously for community safety. There are too many unforeseen variables, too many intangibles here.”

The homeless St. Catharines man stole the idling plow in the early morning hours of Jan. 12, 2011, and ran down Russell during a bizarre rampage up and down Avenue Rd. Psychiatrists could not agree on a diagnosis but a jury concluded last March that the 47-year-old Kachkar was suffering from some kind of psychotic break and was not criminally responsible for the officer’s death.

The following month, at his mandated ORB hearing, lawyers for Kachkar and the attorney general agreed he should be held in medium security at Whitby’s Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences and allowed escorted visits on the hospital’s grounds. But the five-member ORB panel caught everyone by surprise when it went further and also allowed him supervised visits into the community.

Russell’s widow was outraged.

“Deciding to give Mr. Kachkar community access privileges that he did not even ask for is both an insult and a slap in the face to my husband, our family, the police community, the public at large and victims of violent crime,” she said in a written statement after the April 2013 decision. “This is completely unacceptable.”

The Crown went to the appeal court earlier this year, arguing that Kachkar shouldn’t have been given community access when his diagnosis remains unclear and he continues to pose a threat. “The uncertainty around Mr. Kachkar’s mental condition … creates serious issues with respect to public safety,” Crown attorney Eric Siebenmorgen told the court.

And if the ORB was going to go beyond the joint submission, he said the panel should have allowed them the opportunity to argue the matter.

The appeal court disagreed.

In its decision, it offered this difficult reminder: Kachkar was found NCR and instead of punishment, he’s to be given the maximum amount of freedom that allows for treatment while not jeopardizing public safety.

The onus is on the ORB, in other words, to set conditions that are the “least onerous and least restrictive.”

The appeal court was satisfied by Dr. Philip Klassen’s opinion at the ORB hearing that Kachkar wouldn’t pose a flight risk on these escorted passes as long as he is on anti-psychotic medication and closely scrutinized for psychotic episodes by hospital staff. “This evidence was more than sufficient to support the conclusion that the community access condition was consistent with public safety,” the judges ruled.

They were further convinced by a new affadavit from the psych hospital’s medical director who also agreed Kachkar should be allowed community privileges.

For Christine Russell, who has moved out of the country since this tragedy, it was yet another blow. “She’s obviously disappointed and feels let down by the system,” McCormack said.

And in three weeks, she’ll be back in Canada to once again face the man who killed her husband. The ORB will be holding its annual review to judge Kachkar’s progress and consider further privileges. No doubt she is trying to steel herself for the inevitable.

With so much freedom granted so quickly, his full release can’t really be far behind.

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